4Real Works D1 Toyota Soarer - Feature

600HP Drift Machine

Ryoji Jinushi-san started meddling in drifting in his mid-20s at the same time when most people joined in on the fun. As he gradually improved he formed Team 4Real and joined local drift competitions. But, as he says, he would have never expected to find himself drifting among the best in the country on the national D1 Grand Prix Championship. It's slowly becoming a reality, though, as Jinushi-san participated at a professional level in some rounds of the '07 D1-GP. Jinushi-san's debut at Fuji got everyone in the game talking about his unique style and eye-catching ride, the candy green JZZ30 Toyota Soarer you see in these pages. After seeing him pass in front of our cameras at Fuji and Sugo, rear tires lit up, we knew we just had to take a closer look at his car and chat about the whole drift scene.

600HPWe dropped by Tire Garden in Yokohama, where the car is kept when not in use and which also happens to be the major hangout of Jinushi-san's drift team. The car was recently repaired after a minor accident during a practice session, where the front bumper got a nasty crack across the center. Being a Toyota guy, his daily driver is a new Lexus SC430, Jinushi-san actually picked up the Soarer when he initially got started drifting. As time progressed, along with his skills behind the wheel, he decided he had to go all out and splurge some cash to get the Soarer up to professional level. The car was stripped down to a bare shell and stuck on a jig to get it nicely aligned once again.

Drifting, occasional impacts aside, takes its toll on the chassis so before anything else was done this needed to be sorted out. Work then began on adding some more stiffness, thanks to a heavy dose of spot welding. The guys at the body shop then grabbed their welders and braced weak points in the chassis by boxing up areas with metal plates. This is easily seen throughout the interior and especially around the front suspension struts, which are also joined by some additional tubing for extra support.

As with every serious drift car, steering lock is everything. Hence the reason the front wheel arches were cut out and rebuilt. This allows for more space so the wheels are free to do their thing with no rubbing under full lock or under compression. A full racing rollcage was custom built and braced on as many points as possible. This substantially increases the torsional rigidity of the Soarer, not to mention the added safety a contraption like this brings. Before anything else was done, the entire shell was painted in a primer gray for a professional finish-a nice touch as nobody wants to see a messy stripped interior with visible weld marks. Next on the cards was the suspension. A set of custom valved HKS dampers were thrown on and coupled to some incredibly hard Swift springs, 26kg/mm for the front and 16kg/mm for the rear. All arms were swapped out with GT Aoyama pillow-ball items to get rid of any slack in the suspension movement and to introduce an aggressive geometry especially developed for drifting. Jinushi-san preferred not to go over the top with the braking system and settled for a JZX80 Supra front and rear caliper kit biting down on AP Racing slotted rotors with Endless pads.

A car worthy of D1 status needs to look the part too so everyone involved in the project knew they had to make a car that would be instantly recognizable on the track. The guys at BN Sports were called in to provide some styling parts for the Soarer and they certainly didn't disappoint with their full drift-look kit. On went the front bumper with smoothed-out center section and large center opening for the intercooler. This even features a set of foglights, which in this case have been replaced with stinger rays, perfect for stealing looks from the crowds. The factory hood was replaced with a BN Sports aero-type item, which helps with cooling-something that plagues drift cars as they usually always travel at an angle to airflow. The low line of the body was then continued with the side skirts and on to the rear bumper, all from BN Sports. T&E supplied the FRP front fenders, which help marginally widen the front end and open up more space for the front wheels. FRP doors and trunk lids are thrown in to save some weight, as are the rear and side acrylic windows. An incredibly large GT wing and the GT-look side mirrors complete the body, which has been sprayed in a very catchy candy green, making it one of the most recognizable cars used in D1. Wrapped in sticky Yokohama Neova AD07, 18-inch Work Meister S1 split rims are the wheels of choice.

Power is nothing without reliability and this is especially true in drifting, where the engine is asked to deliver its maximum during the runs and has to put up with some pretty hard driving styles. So Jinushi-san got his hands on a fresh 2JZ, a motor with reliability and big-power potential at the top of its list of characteristics. The bottom end of the engine is kept stock but some HKS cams are used up in the head to help get the most out of the bolt-on goodies. The stock turbos were relegated to the trash and in went a Garrett GT35-40R turbine mounted on a SARD exhaust manifold. A SARD external wastegate and Trust Profec B boost controller keep boost pinned at 1.5kg/cm. A 4Real-Works intercooler keeps intake temperatures low, while fueling is increased thanks to the Nismo fuel pump and a set of 650cc/min SARD injectors. Exhaust is a straight through custom job by 4Real-Works as is the intercooler piping and the intake pipe. On pump gas the 2JZ puts out 609 ps and 60kgm of torque-solid numbers and just about perfect to get the Soarer sideways and hold it there while the rearYokohamas are shredded to hell. Joining the 2JZ is a JZA80 Supra six-speed Getrag transmission and an OS Giken twin-plate clutch. Drive is sent to the rear OS Giken LSD, which has the job of handling all that torque.

Open the lightweight driver-side FRP door and there isn't much to look at in the interior. A set of Recaro racing seats and an Italvolanti steering wheel take center stage. The stock dash was trimmed away to make room for the custom center console, which is where the switchgear has been repositioned. The main instrument binnacle has been covered up by an array of Defi gauges, allowing Jinushi-san to keep an eye on the most important engine parameter. An Auto Meter rev counter and shift light was positioned on the center part of the dash and is joined by a Defi fuel pressure meter. To finish off the interior, a strip of silver carbon found its way onto the passenger side of the dashboard-a nice touch that matches the flat gray of the stripped interior and rollcage.

Many thanks to Jinushi-san for allowing use to shoot his Soarer and we wish him the best of luck this season.